facts to prove how very much the readers and admirers of Scott are indebted, for their interest in his writings, to his affection for talking with, and gathering up, the recollections of "the ancient crones and gaffers.' When a young man, Scott was wont to make frequent journeys into the country, among strangers, going from house to house, with his boy George,-and particularly seeking out the residences of the old people, with whom he delighted to enter into con-versation, and exciting them to dilate upon the reminiscences of their youth. Finally, says his biographer, "all who know his works must feel how much of their amusement they owe to his gypsy strolls." All this he did too from his innate love of antiquity; and not merely from the design of drawing pictures of common life for books, -for it was earlier than the time of his career of authorship. These facts are worth consideration. Hannah More, in writing to Mrs. Gwatkins, on the occasion of her first visit to London, says "I have rambled through the immediate shades of Twickenham; I have trodden the haunts of the swan of the Thames."-" I could not be honest for the life of me; from the grotto I stole two bits of stones; from the garden a sprig of laurel and from one of the bed chambers a pen; because the house had been Pope's." On another occasion, speaking of her visit to Kent, where had once dwelt Sir Philip Sidney, and Sacharissa, she says, "I pleased myself with the thought, that the immense oaks and enormous beeches, which had once shaded them, now shade me." [This last is the very thought I have expressed in passing the woods to Harrisburg, and thinking they were the same trees which had shaded the aborigines, now so wasted and expelled.] The Edinburgh Review, in discussing the leading objects of history, says, "the perfect historian is he in whose work the character and spirit of an age is exhibited in miniature; by judicious selections, rejections and arrangement, he gives to truth those attractions, which have been usurped by fiction. He considers no anecdote, no peculiarity of manner, no familiarity of saying, as too insignificant for his notice, which is not too insignificant to illustrate the operations of laws, religion, and of education, and to mark the progress of the human mind. Men must be made intimately known to us, by appropriate images presented in every line. Sir Walter Scott has succeeded to illustrate history, by using up those fragments of truth which historians have scornfully thrown behind them, in a manner which may well excite their envy. A truly great historian would reclaim those materials which the novelist has appropriated; society should be shown from the highest to the lowest. Instruction derived from his. tory thus written would be of a vivid and practical character. It would be received by the imagination as well as by the reason. An intimate knowledge of the DOMESTIC history of nations is therefore absolutely necessary." [I have aimed at this last.] is an Hone's "Every Day Book," which I have only lately seen, expensive and embellished work, published in 1827, in London, got up on purpose to illustrate, after my manner, the perishing memorials of by-gone men and things in London. The chief difference between us seems to be, that he is often supported by the written contributions of others, from all parts of England, and of course producing the pleasing varieties of many minds, whereas I never could enlist the help of any competent mind to furnish me with any personal reminiscences. Hone manifests much tact and good feeling and good taste for his subject-giving us many interesting actions of men and things-several of them disused and obsolete-which in that cause enhances their value and character to us as moderns. His "Every Day Book" abounds with sentences commendatory of olden time affections, and shows that, in the estimation of men of sense, they are decidedly worthy of all praise. It may also be remarked, that in many cases, much smaller matters than I have preserved, and which some might deem trifles, are deemed of sufficient value to be embellished with drawings, or gravely supported with proofs. The whole is calculated to prove that the memorial of times by-gone is certainly valued, because of the insight it affords into the character and action of a departed age; and for that very reason is most valued by those who are most intellectual. Those whose imaginations are most occupied about their readings of any given people or place, are those who most like to have the pictures and images, which their fancies may instinctively draw, satisfied and settled by facts; and hence the love for those portraits and delineations of olden time, which bring up the very age and picture of the past." Chambers' "Traditions of Edinburgh," which I only saw in 1834 -after the publication of my Annals, has much the spirit and purpose of my own book; it is even more minute in sundry articles than I ventured to be: such as characteristics of crazy or silly persons and beggars, under the chapter "objects;" also "the hangman;" some memorable "old maids," &c. His leading topics are "characters" of sundry peculiar or remarkable men and women; sundry "closes and places;" taverns, clubs, and convivial places and parties; sundry remarkable "old houses" and their inmates; and many miscellaneous facts of men and manners, in the former age. The whole in two volumes, 12mo.: 2d edition, Edinburgh, 1825. The author speaks of his performance, as a subject which had engrossed his leisure for many years, and that the praise which it has received is to be ascribed to the accidental excellence of his subject, rather than to any personal merit of his own. He gives several pages on ladies' dresses, such as "calashes, bongraces, (a bonnet of silk and cane,) negligees, stomachers, stays, hoops, lappets, pinners, plaids, fans, busks, rumple, knots, &c., then worn and now forgotten." Gentlemen's dresses he appears to have overlooked, save that he incidentally says that they wore a small black muff, hung by a cord from the shoulder, and seen dangling at the side, when not in use, like a child's drum! A life or a book of observation may always be useful; and this idea is supported by Mr. Walpole, from the opinion of a poet, azying, that "if any man were to form a book, of what he had seen or heard himself, it must, in whatever hands, prove a most useful and interesting one." I am fully of the same opinion, from numerous facts known to me in my researches among the aged for reminis⚫cences and traditions; and with such sentiments, I would make the above sentence my motto, to such future observations or passing events as I may record. Our eloquent countryman, Everett, has touchingly commended to our notice a just regard for our national recollections,--saying of them, "it is thus a free people is to be formed, animated and perpetuated. With such fine examples and studies at home, we need not to be eternally ringing the changes upon Marathon and Thermo- . pylæ. From the lessons of our forefathers, let us glean our instructions. Let us consult with profit their prudent councils in perplexed times; their exploits and sacrifices, either as settlers, or as citizen soldiers, contending for themselves and posterity. The traditionary lore still dwelling in the memories of the few revered survivors among us is worth our preservation. Let us seize it all as the rich inheritance of our children; as a legacy from our progenitors, virtually saying,— My sons, forget not your fathers." Some have taken it for granted that I must have a decided preference for every thing olden, as if age alone made things valuable; but they mistake my bias and feelings; mine is a poetical attachment. I go into it as into the region of imagination. The Edinburgh Review, in noticing the works of Sir Walter Scott, has ascribed principles of action to him, the force of which, in its degree, I also felt and can appreciate, viz.: "his attachment to the manners of antiquity is to be considered merely as a poetical attachment. He is won by their picturesqueness, and by their peculiar applicability to purposes of romance." I write of olden time, because I think the facts, if so preserved, will eventually furnish the material of future legendary story and romance. I also, as I think, am thus preserving useful facts for national recollections and reflection. The public in general have very little conception of the really pleasing character of olden time inquiries. They view the volume as so much accumulated facts, attained, as they suppose, by laborious delving, and exploration, and inquiry. They wholly overlook the real poetry of the subject; the stimulus and gratification which a mind duly constituted for the pursuit acquires, by opening to itself the contemplation and the secrets of a buried age. Such an inquirer examines a world of beings known only to himself; and while he walks and talks with them, he learns facts and incidents known only to themselves. By comparing in his mind the things which may have been so unlike the present, he learns how to estimate the measure of changes which may probably occur in the future, and thus opens to himself additional subjects of gratification and consideration. Thus his mind is busied in the contemplation of things--calm and soothing in their nature, which others do not consider and cannot enjoy. The present race are mostly engrossed in themselves, and their various bounds of action and concern. Their ideal images are limited; but the lover of olden time, revels in the regions of past events, and peoples his intellectual reveries with persons and society all his own; not of fairy creatures like Shakspeare's, but of sober reality, and of such choice selection as may best minister to his entertainment and edification. He sees the forefathers of our land, fresh and ardent as they were, when first set upon the enterprise of cultivating a new Eden for us; he enters into their spirit, and feels their sympathies at home and abroad; he hears their deliberations in the domestic circle, and in the public councils; he is present at every new inland settlement; sees how new plantations are effected, and how towns are created; sees original lands, now dense with population, just as they were in their state of wild nature, then savage with beasts of prey and tawny aborigines. He sees aged oaks and hemlocks, and visits uncultivated spots, like the many still undisturbed scenes on the banks of the Wissahiccon, and cheers his imagination with the fact that he sees the same unaltered objects, which they had once seen and considered: "It soothes to have seen what they have seen, The poet who expressed that sentiment, had a soul which anticipated and felt all which is meant to be here embodied by these few remarks. To an imaginative mind rightly cultivated, the very few hints here suggested will present an unlimited field of amplification. To such, every thing of the past is filled with imagery: and the possessor of the faculty is always enabled to evoke from the store-house of his memory the ideal presence, and is at all times ready "to walk and talk with men of other days." Surely there is positive gratification in faculties like these. "A fool and an antiquary (says Hutton) is a contradiction-they are, to a man, people of letters and penetration." Superficial observers and thinkers may think lightly of the contemplation of facts and things that are past, or grown gray and neglected with years, only because they do not think with the same class of thoughts and associations, or the same character of emotions, which actuate the minds of the real lovers of the times and things by-gone. The affection for such pursuits and studies is wholly intellectual. There are occasions when the soul feels irrepressible reverence, and a hushed silence, in the contemplation of a known relic, or the remains of what was once memorable and peculiar. The soul has a ready facility in investing the perishing, or rescued remains, with an impersonation and ideal presence which enables it, as it were, to speak out to our arrested and excited senses, and recites to us, mentally, the long tale of its notices and observations on men and things, which, through days of by-gone time, it may have witnessed or considered. From such a cause of operation, who can behold an ancient mummy, for instance, and not instinctively revert in reflection to Campbell's touching apostrophe to such an impressive relic!— saying within ourselves: "Statue of flesh-immortal of the dead! Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumber'd, What hast thou seen-what strange adventures numbered ?" I cannot but observe it as a fact in our history, which may perhaps be applied in general to most other early history, that the chances for a true account of the origin of things, are but few and difficult because I cannot but perceive that such is the little of investigation employed thereon by competent minds, and so little are the topics within the cognizance of the mass of the people, that there remains scarcely any to detect a fraud or misconception; but almost all tacitly concede to the first writer or compiler, the complaisance to believe all that he asserts of times by-gone. I have, in after time, detected some such lapses, especially in typographical errors of dates, &c., in my own pages; but which none of the vigilant reviewersso fond of faults, had the sagacity or skill to expose! Sometimes very old people assert things as facts, which they verily believe and have often told, only because their extreme age has destroyed the power of accurate discrimination,-they confound things-and yet they seem so sure and so plausible, that we are constrained to believe them, until subsequent official or written data of the true time and circumstances, disclose the truth. A remarkable instance of what I mean, is verified in the incident related by old Butler, aged 104, respecting General Braddock's marching from Philadelphia, when he landed at Virginia and travelled westward, via the Potomac! If these never come to light to contradict the former assertion, the oft repeated tale goes down to posterity unmolested for ever. In this manner the oldest persons in Philadelphia had all a false cause assigned for the name of "Arch street," and it was only the records of the courts which set me right. The historian of North Carolina gave a wrong case as the cause of the origin of "Yankee Doodle ;" and if I had not discovered another cause, it would have stood as confirmed history for ever. Mr. Heckewelder has given us much detailed history of our Pennsylvanian Indians, and of the Delawares, and has said these last were an original people, and more powerful than all the other Indians; but a late writer, in Mr. Vetake's New Review, endeavours to prove that it was an illusion of the good missionary. He had said too, that the name of "Manhattan" was given to New York by the Indians, as meaning "the place where they all got drunk." This is in opposition to the facts told one hundred and fifty years before, by De Laet, a cotemporary, who twice asserts that the |